In many applications of high-power lasers, particularly applications of Q-switched, high-power, pulsed lasers, it is often desirable to be able to provide variable attenuation of the laser output. Commonly-used high-power Q-switched solid state lasers often provide an output beam that is unpolarized. If laser pump power delivered to the laser is changed, for example, to change output power at a selected level, this can cause a substantial change in thermal lensing of the solid-state gain-medium and a consequent change in the quality of the output beam and the beam pointing. Both of these parameters are critical in applications that are beam-position sensitive, for example, in applications where the beam must be focused into an optical fiber. For the applications that need variable pulse energy in an output beam, there is a need to have an apparatus that that is insensitive to the degree of polarization of laser output and can provide variable pulse energy without varying the pump power to the laser thereby maintaining optimum beam quality and pointing.